Customers use a plurality of devices to access data about themselves and receive information about goods and services offered by corporations, banks and organizations. For example, customers use telephones to call into a bank's system in order to determine their credit card balances and like information using a system as shown in FIG. 1.
Customer 1 uses his telephone 2 to call into the bank's system. He uses a specific phone number like a “1-800” number to get connected to the bank's system via the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) 3. The PSTN completes a connection via interconnection path 10 between the customer's phone 2 and the bank's Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) server 4. The CTI server 4 holds some basic generic information and interfaces with the customer 1 via the PSTN 3 and phone 2. Examples of such information are greetings and menu options such as “Press 1 for account balance” etc.
If the customer 1 requests specific information to his own account, such as the balance, the CTI server 4 accesses a database (DB) server 5. The database server 5 retrieves information from the database 6 and provides it via interconnection path 11 to the CTI server 4 which then forwards it to the customer 1 via the PSTN 3 and telephone 2. Typically, the CTI server 4 performs a translation on the data it receives from the database server 5. This transformation is one from digital data to a computer generated voice. Thus, if the CTI server 4 receives the number “1,500” it will translate this into a computer generated voice message in the form of “Your balance is one-thousand five hundred dollars.” This computer generated message is received and listened to by the customer 1 via the PSTN 3 and phone 2 which are designed to transmit and receive audio based data.
Should customer 1 desire to speak to a customer service representative 8, he merely makes the appropriate menu selection using his telephone 2 and the CTI server 4 switches him to the customer service representative 8 via telephone 9. The customer service representative 8 makes data requests to and receives data from database 6 via the database server 5 and a client/terminal 7. In this manner, the customer service representative 8 can obtain the customer's account balance directly from the database 6.
This system is efficient but it does suffer from several drawbacks. First, data is communicated to the customer 1 in an audio format. Thus if the customer wants to use a ard copy of the data, he must write down the information on a piece of paper as the CTI server 4 “speaks” to him.
Second, the use of the menu system can be quite cumbersome. Most menus are branching structures such that in order to find some information, the customer must make or 6 menu selections before obtaining the desired information. This is inefficient as the customer must listen to a plurality of computer generated prompts and make a number of selections via a keypad on the phone 2 (not shown) before receiving the desired information.
Another problem with the phone system described above is the inability to switch between a plurality of database server 5. For example, if the customer calls the phone number assigned to the credit card system, he will be unable to switch over to any other database 6 or CTI server 4 to receive information regarding student loans or home mortgages. Thus, in order to receive a wide variety of financial information, the customer 1 will have to make a plurality of phone calls to a plurality of different CTI servers 4.
Another problem with this system is in using the phone numbers themselves to access the system. This problem becomes more acute if the customer travels internationally. If the customer is in London, for example, and he desires to learn his credit card balance, he must dial the United States number associated with a particular CTI server 4 in order to get the credit card system. This requires him to know the number and the international calling codes. It may also require the customer to incur substantial expense in making an international call.
FIG. 2 shows another system customers use to obtain information. The system of FIG. 2 is an internet system where the customer uses his personal computer (PC) 20 to receive Web pages.
In this system, the customer 1 typically must use an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to obtain access to the Internet. One popular example of such an ISP is America Online. The ISP maintains servers and local networks 21 for acting as conduits to the Internet. The customer 1 pays either a flat fee or an hourly fee to use the ISP's equipment to obtain access to the Internet. The ISP provides the customer 1 with a phone number that the customer uses to dial into the ISP's equipment via the PSTN 3. Once the connection between the ISP equipment and the customer's PC 20 is established, the customer must type in the address of the company's or institution's Web pages and use a Web browser to retrieve that page through the Internet 22.
The company or institution maintains its Web pages on an Internet server 23. The Internet server 23 “builds” the Web pages the customer sees and forwards them to the customer's PC 20 via interconnection path 24, the Internet 22, the ISP equipment 21 and PSTN 3. When the customer requests specific information such as an account balance, the request gets routed via interconnection path 25 to the database server 5′ and to the database 6 to provide the required data. The Internet server 23 retrieves the needed data from the database server 5′ and places the appropriate graphics and colors around the data, formats all of this data and forwards it to the customer's PC 20 over the path described above.
This system is better than the phone system described above in that it provides data that is easily printable such that the customer does not have to write information down. Additionally, the customer may also receive data in parallel. For example, the customer can learn what his current credit card balance is and the payment address on the same screen. Thus, the customer does not have to listen to a series of messages to obtain all of the desired information.
The above system also suffers from some disadvantages. First, the relative speed in which data is transmitted to the PC 20 is relatively slow. This is because Web pages are designed for high resolution computer screens. There is therefore a lot of pixel data within each Web page. On top of this fact is the general design of the Internet. The Internet is based on a “thin client” type architecture. This means that the servers do most of the work in organizing Web pages such that the home PC does not need to work very hard in assembling the image data. It takes a fair amount of time for the bank's Internet server 23 to compile the data onto one such screen, format it for transmission and transmit it. The Internet, the ISP equipment and the PSTN 3 also have their transmission latencies in forwarding data which only adds to the delay created by the bank's Internet server 23.
Second, this method of forwarding data is also inefficient. Practically every Web page is comprised of both generic material as well as customer specific material. For example, the words “Account Balance” are generic to just about every screen viewed by every customer but the actual balance itself, say “$1,500,” is specific to each customer. Thus, the bank's Internet server 23 is continually building and formatting the same data time after time during the course of the day. This is inefficient utilization of the bank's Internet server 23.
Third, typically the entire Web page is encrypted when transmitted. This again is inefficient utilization of the bank's Internet server 23. Nonproprietary information such as the words “Account Balance” are encrypted and decrypted when the only information that needs to be encrypted and decrypted is the actual dollar amount.
Another device customers use to access data and money is an Automatic Teller Machine (“ATM”) or Customer Access Terminal (“CAT”). In these devices, customers insert magnetic cards or smart cards, type in a Personal Identification Number and access various banking services.
While ATMs have become more prevalent in today's society they additionally suffer from some drawbacks. The first is the customer must find an ATM in order to use it. Thus if the customer is in a remote area, it is likely that an ATM will not be nearby.
In addition, the ATM network is generally limited to financial services. In other words, the machines are use specific for financial information. Most ATMs are not equipped to handle shopping or purchasing of goods and services because the programming within the ATMs is limited and the network coupling the ATMs to bank computers is also limited.